


Fighting, Flighting, and Other Undiscovered Methods for Dealing With Problems That Are Yet Unbeknownst To The Reptilian Brain

by ribbontype



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 12:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10831590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ribbontype/pseuds/ribbontype
Summary: Killua has been an assassin his whole life, and he's never had any trouble with it until he's hired to kill a No-Star Nobody hunter from the middle of Nowhere named Gon.Somewhere in the midst of a manhunt that spans half the planet, he can't quite bring himself to regret bungling the job.





	Fighting, Flighting, and Other Undiscovered Methods for Dealing With Problems That Are Yet Unbeknownst To The Reptilian Brain

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Gon! I originally wrote this for the HXHBB17 but had to, unfortunately, drop out when I realized I wouldn't be able to finish this entire work due to my finals. So, here's the first chapter for you all now since I remembered this takes place on his birthday.

 

Mito’s kitchen smells like seaspray, fresh cut mint, dish soap, candle smoke, frying fish, fabric softener, and lavender shampoo. Which was to say, it’s just far enough from what it  _ should  _ smell like to be worrisome. 

 

“How long will you be staying this time?” Mito asks and Gon, like he always does, notices the pinch of strain in her voice as she braces herself for his answer and Gon, like he always does, tells her the truth. 

 

_ Lavender shampoo. Fabric softener. Nothing strong enough to stand out anywhere but his own home.  _

 

“Mmm,” he hums softly, filling his fidgeting hands with the frying pan on the stovetop. “I’m not really sure. I don’t have anywhere to be, or anything to do right now. Things have been a bit slow lately. But I don’t think I’ll be staying  _ too  _ long. A few weeks?” 

 

“I know that there’s not really anything here for you anymore, but Abe and I appreciate that you take the time to visit. Unlike  _ someone. _ ” 

 

Gon laughs and sprinkles a few more spices onto the sizzling fish, using his dinner as an excuse to take a strong sniff. _Lavender shampoo and fabric softener. He smelled_ _it on the ferry, maybe. He definitely smelled it on the hike back home. Should have been paying more attention._

 

“I’ll always come back to visit you, Mito-san! I promise. Besides, no one else makes birthday cake as you do.”

 

“I know, I know” she says. “But I just can’t help but worry. You always end up getting yourself into bigger and bigger trouble! It can’t be good for you. What are you going to do when you find trouble so big, that not even you can manage to out-trouble yourself?” She clicks her tongue and raps him lightly on the knuckles with a worn wooden spoon before using it to stir a few sprigs of mint into the soup she’s cobbling together. 

 

“I’ll figure something out!” He pokes his tongue out as just the tiniest bit as punctuation and Mito give him one of her  _ looks.  _

 

The small hairs on the back of his neck stick up in a very instinctual and primal way and half of it’s because of a withering glare from his mother and the other half is because he is now very acutely aware that there is someone in his kitchen most likely waiting to kill him as soon as it becomes convenient. He  _ really  _ should have been paying more attention. 

 

“Hm! Well, maybe you should consider figuring something out that’s a little more permanent. You’re growing up fast, Gon. You should start to think about what to do with the rest of your life.” 

 

He groans.

 

“Just  _ think  _ about it,” she insists. “That’s all I’m asking. I’m going to head into the market to meet up with Grandma Abe and pick up the rest of what we need. I won’t be long, so just keep an eye on things.” 

 

“Okay!”

 

And with a kiss on the top of the head she’s gone, leaving him in the position of being very convenient to kill. 

 

Gon takes another hard sniff.  _ There. Back corner of the room.  _ Now that he knows there's another human there, their presence is just shy of palpable. He doesn’t use En - he’s an idiot, but he’s not  _ stupid _ \- instead, he lets himself be hunted. There’s a certain primal awareness that comes from knowing something out there is waiting, watching, intent to kill you with nothing standing in its way but how well you can run, hide, or fight. There’s no Zetsu in the world powerful enough to truly erase it. 

 

The hairs on the nape of his neck stand alert as he plays the part of prey, creeping into the back corner of his dining room under the pretense of grabbing a dishtowel off of that counter.  He’s the rabbit in the tiger’s den. A fish on a hook. His skin chills and his muscles tense on instinct under the sharp gaze of his stalker. This feels much better than talking to Mito about his career prospects. 

 

Barely holding back a grin and not even taking the time to charge up, he forces as much aura into his fists as he can and  _ punches  _ the empty space in front of him where someone is waiting to kill him. 

 

= = = 

 

When Killua comes to 37 minutes later with a splitting headache and a mouth full of blood, his immediate though is  _ someone drove a fucking spike into my forehead  _ before he realizes this is the fun sort of sore you get with blunt trauma, not a piercing blow. 

 

This one wasn’t supposed to be  _ hard  _ god damn it. Killua has probably killed enough pro hunters to compensate for a decade’s worth of exam graduates. He’s even taken down a couple of two stars when the job’s called for it, and those were considered some of the hardest bounties a person could take out. 

 

Since the age of 6 he hadn’t failed a single assassination attempt and now that streak was ruined by some backwater island hick who wore  _ shorts.  _

 

In retrospect he should have known this job would be trouble based on who was paying him to do it. Ging Freecss was something of an anomaly even among pro hunters, considered to be flighty and unpredictable at his best. Other than his status as a three star hunter - one of less than a dozen on the planet - the reputation that preceded him was all Killua had to judge Ging on. The man’s records were all wiped or encrypted so efficiently they’d might as well never had existed in the first place; not even Milluki had managed to get anything out of them and as loathe as Killua was to admit it Milluki was the best at what he did.

 

Supposedly Killua was the best at what he did too. Supposedly.  _ Christ  _ his family is going to be  _ pissed  _ unless he can somehow manage to save face and leave Shorts Boy dead in a ditch somewhere. 

 

As soon as he’s conscious enough to do so Killua opens his eyes with a  _ snap  _ and lets himself adjust to the late evening light of the room he’s in. He’s laying in a bed pressed into one corner and whoever put him here took the time to remove his shoes and tuck him underneath the covers. A nice gesture, he supposes, but what they  _ really  _ should have had the foresight to do was just kill him before he can get to them first, because that’s entirely what he’s planning to do here.

 

Footsteps come from the hall with no attempt made to hide them and the sound gets closer Killua darts out of bed, waiting silently next to the door to get this over with quickly. He doesn’t reactivate his Hatsu. However his target noticed him when he was invisible, he doesn’t plan on hanging around long enough for sight to be an issue. Instead of using his aura to warp the light around him, a useful but difficult technique, he springs for something a bit easier and lets a few arcs of electricity pulse around his hands. 

 

He sharpens his fingers into knives and will not be caught off guard again. 

 

Half a second longer as the footsteps echo and Killua’s target is in close enough range that he can feel the hum of the other man’s aura without his En. Only a few inches of plywood and plaster stood between them. In just an instant, he’d swing the door open to check on his supposedly till unconscious captive and that would be the last thing he did. 

 

The footsteps pause outside the door and Killua stills himself completely, living in the moment between heartbeats where the human body is at it’s most exact. Tensed to spring, coiled up, his body will react quicker than his mind can process because that’s what he was trained for and Gon Freecss will be dead before he can understand why he’s walking into an empty room.

 

Instead, there’s a sturdy knock on the door and Killua is so tensed to spring, coiled up, body reacting faster than his mind that he’s already managed to ricochet himself across the entire expanse of the room before he can wonder what kind of person knocks on their own bedroom door. 

 

There’s a horrible, gut-wrenching handful of seconds before the knock comes once again and Killua is half tempted to just make his way out of the window he’s  _ right  _ next to it after all but before he can even finish the thought he has to remind himself that he isn’t wearing his fucking shoes and he has no intent of leaving them here either and so between being quite literally backed into a corner and the fact that his brain feels like it was punched into soup less than an hour ago he does what is quite literally the only thing he can come up with and says, simply and sternly “Come in.”

 

The door swings open with the kind of creak you get in houses that have old bones, the kind of creak that tends to make Killua’s job harder. 

 

“I’m glad you’re awake,” Killua’s target says with absolutely nothing in his voice to suggest he’s being facetious. Killua isn’t sure if that fact, or the tea tray the man carries in his left hand is making him angrier. “I was going to wake you up even if you weren’t, but I’m sort of happy I don’t have to do that.” 

 

The surreality of a target talking to him, addressing him face to face like they’re day-by-day acquaintances feels stranger than it would have if a character from a movie crawled out of the screen to say hello.

 

“I can make this easy for you if you want, y’know. If you stay still and don’t try to fight back it doesn’t have to hurt. You won’t even get time to scream.” Eyes narrowed, gaze turned to stone, hands like electrified blades. Enough to make any sane person hesitate. 

 

“Yeah! That’s what I wanted to talk about.” Killua obviously isn’t dealing with a sane person.

 

“If you’re going to beg, it’s not gonna work, I’ve heard it all before.” He hasn’t. Hasn’t had to. Hasn’t left anyone alive long enough for it to be an issue but hey, the target doesn’t need to know that. 

 

“Oh, no. No, don’t worry about that” he shakes his head. Unfazed. “Um. Do you want some tea first?”

 

Ah. There’s the money. All Killua has to do is take whatever sort of tainted tea he’s being offered, pretend that whatever poison he tastes is working, and he’ll get at least some degree of surprise on his side again. He won’t have to sit and have the world’s least comfortable conversation with an unflinching psychopath either.

 

“Sure.”

 

The target seems a bit surprised by that answer but happy nonetheless and he takes the steaming earthenware pot off of the tray to pour each of them a glass. He hands Killua the mug before sitting down on the edge of his bed and, for lack of anything better, Killua mirrors the motion, sitting as far away from the other man as he can be while still perching on the same edge. Killua sips first in good faith. Gon follows suit. 

 

“Can I ask why you’re trying to kill me?”

 

“I’m an assassin.”

 

“Yeah,” Gon says. “You’re trying to assassinate me, but why?”

 

Killua’s been wondering that himself. Normally the jobs come with at least  _ some  _ context, a slight inkling towards what a mark has done to deserve being murdered for, even if he’s just left to guess from the state of their house. He’s killed many people who’ve deserved it, and even more who haven’t, but all of them had their rhyme and reason. The innocent daughter of a mafioso, killed to keep her father in line for his client. A business owner, taken out before he could redraft his will, leaving the company in the hands of his conniving assistant. Other assassins, hitmen, murderers, thieves, any kind of criminal people had wanted to punish. 

If it hadn’t been for grandiosity of his mark’s aura and the king’s ransom he was being paid to do this job, he would have assume the other man was just unlucky enough to be tangled up in some bad business. There was nothing that stood out about him at all. Gon dressed a little bit oddly, somewhere between the standard fare of the layman and the intimidatingly ostentatious clothes worn by people like his brother who looked for trouble. They were well-worn and imprecise in their tailoring, but fit him so well they must have been sewn with him in mind. If he was wealthy, he either hid it or just didn’t care enough to show it. The only thing he wore that even suggested there might be more to him than meets the eyes was a strange, iridescent necklace that occasionally peeked from underneath the collar of his jacket. 

 

He was scarred, too. Dozens of them all over the bare portions of his body and presumably scores more where Killua hadn’t seen yet. Neither out of the ordinary for a hunter, or for a young man from an island where the people were sailors and tradesmen. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t what most people would call striking either. His hair was spiked oddly around his face, framing it in a way that didn’t necessarily compliment the squareness of his jaw. His eyes were round and friendly and shone against the deep tan of his skin but it wasn’t enough to counter the overall mundanity of Gon’s life. 

 

“No,” Killua says. “I’m an  _ assassin.  _ Professionally. It’s my job, which I’m being paid to do.” Killua starts to drink. The tea doesn’t taste like anything but peppermint tea and Killua starts running through a mental list of powder poisons, things that would line the bottom of the cup and not kick in till later.

 

“Oh! That makes sense. I haven’t met you before so I don’t think it’d make sense for you to try and kill me.” He pauses to take another sip of his drink with a soft hum. “I guess you can’t tell me who is paying you do do it.”

 

“I’d be a pretty terrible assassin if I divulged information about my clients.”

 

“I guess not. And you’d definitely be a bad assassin if you didn’t at least try to kill me either.” He leans back on his bed “We’re going to have to figure out how to settle this, huh?” 

 

“There’s nothing to figure out. I’m going to kill you.” If Gon has any sort of reaction to the shadows on his eyes and the venom in his voice, Killua doesn’t notice. 

 

“Okay,” Gon says, pensive fingers drumming across his own face. “How about you wait until after we’re done with dinner, and then, I’ll let you do your best to kill me.”

 

“What?

 

“I’m Gon, by the way. Gon Freecs.”

 

“I know.”

 

“I know you know, but I feel like I should introduce myself to you. You already slept in my bed! What’s your name?” He laughs and goes for a friendly elbow to the side, but his arm sweeps through the empty air where Killua sitting just a heartbeat before.

 

“You’re not even taking this a little bit seriously, are you,” He hisses. “I could kill you right now before you’d even have time to react.

 

“Then why haven’t you yet? It’s your job isn’t it?” No bite, just curiosity in his voice as he sips at the cup of tea he’s holding and Killua opens his mouth to answer but a question comes out instead.

 

“Why didn’t you kill me first? You could have put something in the tea. Finished me off while I was unconscious. Gone for a killing blow in the kitchen. All of this would have been a non issue. Are you stupid or just a coward?”

 

“Oh! No, I’m just kind of an idiot.” Gon gives a good natured shrug. “I didn’t even think about doing that. I wouldn’t have done it either way thought. I don’t want to kill you, I want to fight you!”

 

“Okay, then. Let’s fight.”

 

Gon grimaces.

 

“I need you to do me a favor first.”

 

“ _ Really? _ ”

 

“I’m sorry, okay! Mito-san - my mom - she, doesn’t much like hunters,” he groans. “She gets mad at me when I bring messes like this home, so can you maybe wait until after dinner, like I said? Please? Mito-san is a  _ really  _ good cook. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Then we can go find somewhere nice and quiet where no one else will get hurt and we can fight.”

 

“You want me to have dinner with your family and then duel you, instead of just killing you right here and now, which is my job.”

 

“Yes, that’s exactly what I want!” 

 

Killua finds himself actually laughing. “You’re crazy,” he says. “You know that, right?”

 

“Hey. What’s your name?”

 

= = = 

 

Gon makes sure to sit close enough to Killua to make sure the other man doesn’t try any funny business. Mito and Abe take one half of the table and Gon and Killua claim the other. Mito piles her buffet in the center and it’s all Gon can do to bow his head for a quick prayer of thanks before digging in. It doesn’t take long to clear the plates and everyone’s hungry enough that they save the small talk for when Mito begins to stack the dirty dishes to bring them to the kitchen.

 

“So, Killua,” Mito asks with the slightest twinge of hesitation in her voice that Gon wouldn’t have noticed if the woman hadn’t raised him. “Are you a hunter too?”

 

“No,” Killua says quickly, and then with a little less haste “... I’m a chocolatier. I own a small candy shop in the Republic of Padokea.” 

 

“Oh! That’s so nice. What brings you to Whale Island?” 

 

“Uh-”

 

“Plants!” Gon cuts in. He kicks Killua’s leg lightly under the table and Killua kicks back in a way that you certainly wouldn’t call lightly. “There’s certain rare herbs that can only be obtained in specific island regions and a lot of them have much stricter import and export policies than we do. So Killua came here to see if he can get some of them to use in his recipes.”

 

“Yeah, I think it’ll boost sales. You know how those new foodies are, always looking for something strange and exotic without having to actually leave home.” 

 

“Well, you’re welcome to stay in our home as long as you’re in town.” Mito-san says gently. “If you’d like I can take you down into the market tomorrow and see if anyone I know has what you’re looking for. I’m sure we could arrange something.”

 

“Don’t worry about it, Mito, Killua said he’s already got a room booked down in town.”

 

“Yeah. And we should probably get going soon too. Gon said he’d show me the quickest way back into town and I’d like to settle down early tonight.”

 

“Ah, I understand,” She says. “At least stay for cake though.”

 

“We shouldn’t,” is what Gon says at the same Killua says “Of course we will.”

 

“Well, I guess we have time then!” Gon corrects himself after Killua shoots him a withering look, the same murderous darkness in his eyes he had earlier in the bedroom.  _ Don’t ruin this for me.  _

 

Killua inhales about a third of the entire cake on his own and Gon would swear on his life (sort of  _ is  _ swearing on it, in a roundabout way) that his face is still marked with the slightest hints of a satisfied, catlike grin. 

 

“When will you be back?” Mito asks, like she always does when Gon leaves and Gon has never liked lying to Mito, so he tells her.

 

“I don’t know,” he says because he doesn’t. “Soon, hopefully! I’ll try my best!”

 

“That’s a peculiar way to phrase things, Gon.” Of course she doesn’t let it slide because she wouldn’t be his mother if she did. 

 

“I’ll be back soon. I promise.” He pulls her into a quick hug and lets his hair get mussed up as she tucks his head under her chin. “Thanks for dinner. It was really great.”

 

“Of course.”

 

= = =

 

The night is fresh, the crisp breeze of a late spring evening and lush air that you can only get in a place far far far away from the city intermingling around them. Gon leads Killua into the forest in a deafening sort of pseudo-silence. Nature is loud, organic things, living creatures, they’re loud. Scuffling claws and dripping water and the slight rustle of leaves are like gunshots to Killua who is silent as the dead, or perhaps, even more so. His footsteps are silent. He might as well not be there. When Gon’s feet land he sounds like scuffling claws, dripping water, and the slight rustle of leaves.

 

Killua breaks the silence because while he is breaking traditions, rules, and promises, he might as well make the most of it.

 

“How old are you? It’s your birthday today. How old did you turn.” 

 

“Oh, huh? I’m eighteen. Why?”

 

“Just curious. I’ll be eighteen in a couple of months.”

 

“Neat,” Gon says, and Killua almost thinks he’s sincere. “When’s your birthday?”

 

“July 7th.

 

“Tanabata,” he hums. “Planning to quit working and fall in love?”

 

Killua laughs dryly. “Sure.”

 

They weave through coarse, thorny bushes and between ancient trees whose branches knot together so tightly that only the slimmest streaks of moonlight can pierce through. The forest gets deeper and darker and neither of them need a flashlight. 

 

Gon leads him into a clearing. The trees part into a wide field of tall, lush grass scattered with boulders, all of it silver-lined and greenblue in the early night time. The only sound is the way the grass whispers as Gon parts it. They are far from any water and the animals of the forest know it’s best not to be around when two predators are competing. Killua lets Gon walk ahead and this distance between them grows as they ease into the knowledge that this will be one of their final resting places. 

 

“Are you ready?” Gon asks.

 

“Of course,” Killua answers.

 

After that, two equally important things happen at once: The first being that the two of them activate their Ren, allowing their auras to flood out from their bodies and fill every nook and cranny of the field around them. The second is that Gon takes off his jacket. 

 

“What  _ are  _ you,” Killua chokes out with a dry throat and god help him, he should be considering himself ahead of the game for not just bolting right there.

 

Gon wore a simple white tank top underneath his jacket and it didn’t cover enough to be conspicuous. It coated the the base of his neck, his shoulders, his biceps, and Killua could only assume his back, too, and maybe more. Chitinous and iridescent, it was somehow solid and fluid at the same time, seamlessly integrated into his flesh and shining like carved jade in an oil slick. And his aura, his  _ aura.  _ Killua had felt it earlier. Every living creature had a presence, nen users doubly so, and without the aid of Zetsu it leaked out around them like natural body heat. Gon’s had been warm and formidable, with the natural feeling of a hunter and woodsman.

 

But that had been then. 

 

Now, being proudly displayed instead of just leaking out, Gon’s aura told the full story.

 

He was not human.

 

“What are you?” Killua repeats. “A shapeshifter? Some kind of nen construct? An UMA?”

 

“No,” Gon says with a light shake of his head. “I’m a chimera ant.” 


End file.
